1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a composite image-generating device that transforms an input image received from a capturing section into an output image and, as needed, generates an output image with an overlay image superimposed on the transformed image. In addition, the invention relates to a computer-readable medium storing a program for causing a computer to function as the composite image-generating device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a system has been studied and put into practical use in which a captured image taken by a camera for capturing images of the view from a vehicle is displayed in a vehicle cabin so that a driver, for example, can see the captured image, and in addition, the captured image is displayed with a computer-generated image superimposed on the captured image. There are various contents as conceivable specific contents superimposed on the captured image taken by the camera, such as one in which objects to which attention should be paid, such as curbstones and chocks, and pedestrians, are highlighted, one in which assistive lines drawn by extending side edges of the vehicle, and one in which an arrow that indicates the travel direction is displayed on the image of a front view from the vehicle as a navigation display.
As an example of such a system, an invention is described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No, 2006-238131 (JP-A-2006-238131), the invention relating to a vehicle vicinity-monitoring system that displays, as a background image, a captured image taken by a capturing section for capturing images of the view from a vehicle and translucently displays the vehicle.
However, in JP-A-2006-238131, a composite image is generated as the background image, using the captured image, the history thereof, etc. in accordance with the data in a coordinate conversion table, and then a drawing operation section performs a drawing operation (paragraph [0018] in JP-A-2006-238131). Thus, the size and costs of the entire system increase. However, the demand for reducing size and costs of on-board devices is strong, and improvement is therefore needed.